Using a pasta maker to mill grain.

Williams 728
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smoa said:
Are the rollers thick enough material to put a true knurl on them? Are they hardened? I work in a machine shop and could probably knurl them, but I am doing 20lbs batches. Should I waste my time on a mill this small?
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The rollers are thick enough to be knurled, a few of the guys have had them turned, including myself. Mine worked really well through a bunch of PM batches, but really didnt cut it when i stepped up to 100% AG. I have since retired it and went to a Crankandstein, which has been working really great and producing what i would consider a superior crush. IMO I would go straight to a purpose built mill for what your doing.
 
image_4186.jpg


I saw this at the store yesterday and all I could think of was new idea for grain mill.

only $28.00 at Harbor Freight

Roller dimensions: 1-1/4" diameter x 7-1/2" W
 
Can anybody comment on motor horsepower and RPM required to push grain through a pasta-mill? I'd love to hear a comment from people about their own motor HP and how well it fairs, especially if someone has failed to turn it with an under powerered motor so we can get an idea of the threshold.

I have some gearheaded DC motors here at work, but they are pretty small - nothing like the furnace fan motor sized ones I've seen in a couple pics.
 
So, did anyone else have a hard time getting the base off of the pasta maker? The screws holding it together seem to just spin without coming out.

EDIT - Got it. A little pressure on the vertical stands with a pair of pliers did the trick.

EDIT AGAIN - Just realized I could have removed the outer plates.
 
My pasta roller broke last night. got around 40 lbs through it. the rollers just started wobbling and the gap was tight at one end and big on the other. Definetly got my money out of it though. Thanks to this thread, it's time to move on to a new one.
 
MazdaMatt said:
Can anybody comment on motor horsepower and RPM required to push grain through a pasta-mill? I'd love to hear a comment from people about their own motor HP and how well it fairs, especially if someone has failed to turn it with an under powerered motor so we can get an idea of the threshold.

I have some gearheaded DC motors here at work, but they are pretty small - nothing like the furnace fan motor sized ones I've seen in a couple pics.
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Quoting to restate the question. Anybody?
 
Update for my pasta maker mill, I've now run 80lbs of grain through it (79.8, technically) and am noticing my efficiency is creeping downwards slowly. I peaked around 80% and have only changed mashing techniques that would increase efficiency, yet I'm now consistently around 65-70%.

I think my mill needs yet another go with the drill bit to score the rollers again. I redid it a few months back after my first couple batches were slow to pull through and it made a huge difference (80% efficiency was there), was much faster (30 minutes to grind up 10lbs grain) but that's changing now and I can't seem to get the crush where I want it.

I think I'm going to call it a day on my pasta roller mill and move onto a Barley Crusher, I spent about $40 or so on the pasta maker and drill bit to drive it so I feel it was money well spent on a hobby I wasn't sure I'd hold onto for this long. Now I know how good all grain brewing is, so it's worth it.
 
I'm in the same boat. In order to get my crush where I want it, I have to run the grain through on one setting then again one setting tighter. So I got a barley crusher.
 
Yea pretty much same experience here, I bought a pasta roller and played with it for a couple of batches, It worke fairly well, but I soon realized my Corona mill was a far better "cheap" mill and traded the pasta roller to another brewer for a six pack.
 
Does anyone have a diagram of a hopper they built they'd be willing to share? I tried making one out of cardboard that failed spectacularly.

On the bright side, after grinding my grain 1/2 a tasting glass at a time, Brew Target tells me I had an 80.5% efficiency on my first all grain brew.
 
Angry Turtle Brewing said:
Does anyone have a diagram of a hopper they built they'd be willing to share? I tried making one out of cardboard that failed spectacularly.
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I bored a 1 inch hole in a bit of plywood, cut it to the size of the top of the mill, then cut the bottom off of a 2L pop bottle and screwed the bottle top into the hole. Worked great for those 80lbs, would work for a thousand more!

I just zap strapped it down to the mill to keep it in place. Held about 1lb of grain (I cut my bottle at the halfway mark). Ghetto desperation hopper!
 
Thanks wilserbrewer and Psych. I ended up going to Lowe's and buying some 3/8" X 6" and 1/4" X 6" plywood and built a triangular hopper with some side supports similar to the on Digitizer101 built in post #346 of this thread.
 
I did the cheap....err recycle route for the hopper I had.. I used the box my Wii came in and a bunch of duct tape to attach it!! I'd take a photo but I have since given the "noodle crusher" to a friend just getting started in AG brewing.
 
I'd like to compare the spacing between the different machine rollers. Since I don't have a caliper that would fit in there, I thought we could use coins as a North American system.

My (unmodified) machine is labeled CookQuarters and its graded 1 to 7. I can fit a dime at setting 4 (very thight and kind of forcing it) and a nickel at setting 7. If I go off the charts, I can fit 2 dimes at setting 7 + ~2

What does your machine rate at on the dime/nickel scale and at what setting do you use it to crush barley ?

N.B.: I used Canadian coins, but they are close enough to the American one to make little difference.
 
I decided to give a try to the grip tape modification that was proposed before.

I bought some grip tape from "ebuyonebay" on ebay and applied a strip to a single roller. First, I cleaned the roller with alcool. Once applied, I cut any piece of overlapping tape. Then, I used a spare piece of grip tape to lap the tape on the roller. This was done to make sure that all grains of sand not tightly bound to tape are removed. The result is a rough tape finish (similar to the cloth tape on hockey sticks) without any sandy grit left to it.

With my pasta maker set at the largest roller gap (setting 7), I get a space big enough for a penny :
setting7.jpg

And here is an example of the crushed 2-row at that largest setting:
setting7b.jpg

And here with a gap one notch smaller then maximum (setting 6) :
setting6.jpg

Anything crushed with a smaller roller gap takes a lot of time is results in much flour.

Do these crushes look good to you all ? Is a penny gap too big or is it big enough and I should run the barley twice through it ?
 
as long as all the kernels are crushed then it'll work. the key is crushing small enough that you get the extraction you want and not getting a lot of particle into the kettle. Even a cloudy boil is ok as long as you don't have huge particles in the boil. I only say that because I BIAB and the boil is always cloudy, but the end product is crystal clear. Now, if you BIAB you can crush the hell out of it and not worry :D
 
Just as an FYI I picked one of the clay machines up at Joann's today with a 40% off coupon for 16.07 out the door.
 
A question to anyone who has a similar machine : how do you remove this kind of pull-and-turn knob ? I hear a rattling sound in my mill from that side, but I can't have access to the mechanism because of the knob.

mill_knob.jpg
 
It was enough of a pain to get that cover off that after I got mine off once I never put it back on again when I was using the pasta roller mill.
 
gabeweisz said:
It was enough of a pain to get that cover off that after I got mine off once I never put it back on again when I was using the pasta roller mill.
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same here. it's only function is for looks. the outer portion of the knob is the working part and leaving the cover off caused no problems. I would take a pic of mine but I passed it on to another brewer when I got my barley crusher. If I remember correctly there was a nut that tightened onto the rod going through the mill with a spring in between the knob and nut allowing tension to maintain the setting. I might be wrong because I have slept since then. :D
 
Currently in the process of setting this up. I have a stand built that will allow crushed grain to drop into a 5 gallon bucket, and enough room up top to mount a motor whenever I get one that will suit the purpose. Currently roughing the drums up, and dreaming up a hopper.

I noticed on the bottom of my box a list of settings and the width they would be crushing at. This is for the AMACO polymer clay model, with 9 settings. I am not sure if it has been listed before but seems extremely relevent.

1- .003"
2- .006"
3- .008"
4- .015"
5- .038"
6 .051"
7 .065
8 .075"
9 .089"

I have completely disassembled the whole rig and put it back together and don't see why it shouldn't stand up to abuse. Although if you do turn the crank handle in reverse one too many times it might unthread the cog on the slave drum.
 
I just got one of these pasta makers to turn into a grain mill. I have a question: it smells like maching oil or something, so I'm wondering about cleaning it. I'm guessing it would rust if it gets wet (especially after the rollers have been roughened up). How do you guys clean yours? Any problems with rust?
 
there was some grease in the gears of mine. But since that shouldn't be touching the grain going into your bucket it shouldn't be a problem. My rollers never rusted and as far as I know they still haven't rusted (gave my pasta mill to a new brewer since I got a BC)
 
Don't clean it with water! It's food grade grease to protect the mechanisims inside. We had a bunch of black streaks on our pasta when we were rolling our sheets out, so that's how I know (I called KA and asked what the deal was). Run a throw-away batch of pasta dough through it and that will clean most of it off of there, but don't put any water around it - then you'll run the risk of getting water in the gearbox and rusting.
 
I've run about 40 pounds of grain through my modified pasta maker and like many others am growing impatient with it and the low efficiencies it has been giving me lately. It seems like every 3 or so batches you run through this thing, it needs to be roughed up again. I might give it another go after I take the drill bit and dremmel to it again, but I might just pony up the money for a barley crusher or monster mill and call it a day. It was a good run while it lasted though!
 
Nothing new on the pastamachines?
Just ordered mine for 18 euro's, hopefully it will increase my brewinghouse efficiency which is dramaticly nog with the corona mill.
Hope to post some pics soon
 
So I was a believer for a while, but now that I have a monster mill I will never look back. While $20 is hard to beat, knowing that your mill will never break no matter how fast you grind the malt is nice. Not to mention the ability to finely adjust your grind.
 
BigJay13 said:
So I was a believer for a while, but now that I have a monster mill I will never look back. While $20 is hard to beat, knowing that your mill will never break no matter how fast you grind the malt is nice. Not to mention the ability to finely adjust your grind.
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+1000 to this. Although I have a barley crusher instead of a MM. The pasta mill is great and because of it was able to start buying grain in bulk and crushing it right before brewing. I feel that made a huge difference in my beers. $20 is hard to beat for a grain mill. That said, The pasta mill is slow at crushing compared to a regular mill. I can crush 14lbs of grain in a couple of minutes with the barley crusher as opposed to 20 minutes with the pasta mill.

I would still recommend a pasta mill to anyone wanting to crush their own grains but can't afford to buy a full fledged mill.
 
Problem i, that the cheapest mill we can get here is the Barley Crusher. Price is 168 euro incl. shipping
 
Koffie said:
Problem i, that the cheapest mill we can get here is the Barley Crusher. Price is 168 euro incl. shipping
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a pasta mill will still do the job. It won't be as fast as a regular mill but it does work. I made at least 10 batches with mine before I was given a barley crusher as a gift. They're slower and louder but you can't beat the price.
 
Rather than a pasta mill, I would advise a Corona for long term inexpensive milling...I have used both, the Corona is far and away better for only a few dollars more. Corona mills are built like freight trains, i rather doubt you could wear one out.
 

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